"Free trial, but put in your card" Don't founders get it?

Question

Hi everyone,
As much as I know that giving free access to a product you heavily invested in is not fair, from my personal experience, I have always frowned at free trials requiring cards (hey, you said it was free).

Users become makers. I think that's a bridge I have not fully crossed in order to understand why makers still add requests for cards for users to access a demo or trial period.

I also wonder (yes makers, I'm trying to read your mind, yeah, stay like that, good) if this is actually successful or it actually scares users off.

Has anyone done an A/B testing where they rolled out a product out with A as a cardless demo/trial and B as a card-requiring demo/trial in order to compare the results?

I know there is a justifiable reason for asking people to punch in their cards. But is the reality worth it?

Matthew Busel · Accepted Answer

As a user, I totally feel you. It's a pain to whip out a credit card just to check out a product. More than that, I hate having to keep track of products I've signed up for but want to cancel in the future.

As a founder, let me try to make a case for it. When you're just getting started, you're trying to figure everything out at once. Most importantly, you need to decide what to build. The best way to do that is to attract users that resonate deeply with the problem you're solving and then get their honest feedback.

In the early days, asking for a credit card ensures the users signing up feel the problem deeply enough to deal with that pain. Not to mention, it just takes time to build a proper freemium-type offering into a product.

At our company, we absolutely want to move over to a true freemium offering in the future, so anyone can get started easily. It's absolutely more user-friendly and like you said if the product is great people will stick around. Just wanted to share some thoughts as to why a startup might not begin that way.

Luka Vasic · Answer

I think it's not worth it and it just scares people away. There are platforms that can auto-subscribe you after the trial and many people are scared of that. It should never be mandatory for people to put in their cards. If they like the product/platform they will pay for it after the trial. It always looks shady and untrustworthy.

Arun Pariyar · Answer

Hi @mbusel , you made a good case here ! for a big company it makes sense even now I guess  but as you said startups can do things differently and work really solving the problem first if they manage that money is bound to come 👍

Anna Mandziuk 🇺🇦 · Answer

I recently read Katelyn Bourgoin's newsletter that called instances like these "sludge" - creating intentional friction in an experience can occasionally help users but much more often annoys the heck out of them and kills brand trust.

Promising free access or trial, and then requiring a card, or getting charged when you forgot to cancel, because you barely used the product, looking for the cancel button which is nowhere to be found.

Katelyn says: "Sludge, while often good for a company’s bottom line, is usually bad for customers."

She recommends removing sludge from customers' experience as it often slows things down and decreases brand trust.

Ezzat Suhaime · Answer

@anna_mandziuk  Never heard of the sludge term. Very fitting

Arun Pariyar · Answer

Its understandable why companies ask for and perhaps now the norm will change as business understand that there are many digital service that people now choose to use so may be credit card details is too much a commitment on the customers side perhaps work on really bring them value first and then approach for the money when the time is right even better let customers decide themselves.you chose a really good topic for discussion by the way. Look forward to reading more thoughts to come 👍

Paul VanZandt · Answer

We made sure that the onboarding process is as easy as possible on Fresco - simply create a free account and it's free forever. I think, unfortunately, many SaaS models unofficially rely on people forgetting to cancel their subscription, and inputting card details at the jump increases this liklihood.

Daniel Engels · Answer

Hate putting my credit card details for a "free" product, or for a 30-days trial. I don't wont the software editor benefit from me frogetting to cancel the subscription. I'd prefer him stopping the service without notice rather than charging after the free trial ends.

So my response is to put fake credit card details (there are web services that generate such). Come on, if your product is good you don't need to steal my money.

Matthew Johnson · Answer

We found that by not asking for the credit card up front, users were much less likely to get activated in the trial period. There was no countdown in their mind to build a new habit and so often they'd sign up and never come back.

Once they put the credit card in, there's more skin in the game so they are more likely to start using the product and to convert.

"Free trial, but put in your card" Don't founders get it?

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